


Eleven O'Clock

by Nobodydiestonight (orphan_account)



Series: Eleven O'Clock [1]
Category: American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: F/F, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Nobodydiestonight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misty hadn’t realized how selfish she’d been in the first two months of their relationship until her fingers trailed up Cordelia’s sleeve and she felt a bump on her wrist that wasn’t a vein.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eleven O'Clock

Eleven o’clock was her hour. The girls in the academy knew that unless they were experiencing one of her three B’s (bleeding, barfing, or burning), or someone else was showing behavior that fell under one of her three D’s (dangerous, disturbing, or destructive), Cordelia’s door was not to be knocked on after eleven at night. Ten, really, but often she was still in the greenhouse or spending quality time with a small group late in the evening.   
  
After two months of Supremacy, routines were becoming easier and eleven o’clock was all hers once again. Though, it wasn’t just her time.  
  
When Misty first came back from hell, the reality of eleven o’clock and the darkness of sleep had been far too much, and the hour was far from relaxing for either of them. During the day, Misty could smile and power through just about anything, but come night time, the reality of dying twice and living through her worst nightmare repeatedly made sleep difficult to come by.

 

Cordelia would fold down her comforter and invite the younger witch into her bed, holding her while she’d tremble and relive the terrible experience again and again. After the third night of quaking and trying not to cry, the two stayed late in the greenhouse, creating a mild potion for a dreamless sleep that helped tremendously. After two months, Misty could tell which nights she’d need the brew, and most of them, she was okay to just be in the presence of the woman she loved.

 

Now eleven o’clock meant a record playing quietly on the machine near the mantle, Misty in tune to the music while Cordelia read a book with her glasses perched on the edge of her nose. 

 

Such was the night, Misty curled on her right side wearing a worn, blue and black checked flannel, the top few buttons undone. Her fingers played with the silky fabric of Cordelia’s black, sleeved nightgown. The Supreme was scanning a book about school leadership, her jaw opening and closing every few minutes as she starved off yawn after yawn.

 

Misty traced letters to the song titles on Cordelia’s arm, humming softly to the music. She nestled a little deeper, the blonde waves of her hair falling onto the older witch’s shoulder. Cordelia turned a page and read on. Misty dipped her finger onto the edge of the woman’s nightgown, smirking a little devilishly as she traced the tip to tickle her favorite person.

 

Cordelia raised her brows and tried to hide a smile of her own when Misty’s index finger went flat along her wrist and she felt a raised bump that wasn’t a vein. The Supreme stiffened as the witch explored more, feeling another line on the skin of her forearm. Misty’s expression shifted from playful to concerned and Cordelia hastily snapped her book shut as her partner curiously tried pushing her sleeve up.   
  
She bit her lip and used her left hand to clasp Misty’s inquiring fingers. Shaking her head, she couldn’t raise her eyes to meet the questioning ones of her best friend and then some.

 

“Delia,” Misty said seriously, but gently. She was sitting up fully, turned to face the leader of the Coven, tilting her head to try and meet her gaze. 

 

“Don’t,” The older of the two women attempted to state authority over the younger, who could have slugged her for trying to do so. “Please?” Brown eyes shimmered as she finally lifted them to meet Misty’s blue ones, trying obviously to keep her chin from trembling. “I’m not proud of it,” She whispered.  
  
“Well, I don’t imagine you would be,” The curly haired girl gave a sympathetic pout as she raised a hand to cup Cordelia’s cheek. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell me about it, Delia. I love you, no matter what scars you have.” The Supreme leaned her face into the comforting skin, letting out a shaky first cry before kissing the palm and leaning forward to express years of pent up self-loathing. 

 

Cordelia held her sleeve down with her left hand, thinking about how to start explaining her most shameful secret. “Hank told me it was stupid. He said there’s no point in hurting yourself to feel.”

 

“Well Hank was a whole sack of stupid,” Misty leaned down to kiss the edge of her lover’s sleeve, not demanding to see, but showing her support. “And I understand you better than that. You’ve had a lot of pain in your beautiful life. It’s not been easy for you, and you didn’t always have somebody who’d listen and support your feelings.”

 

Cordelia nodded, wiping the tears that had gathered on the rim of her eyelid. “It started when I was eleven. The doctor I eventually saw a few years later said the depression probably started a lot earlier than that, but that’s when it started to manifest.”   
  
Misty set her hand on Cordelia’s lap over the comforter, urging the woman to continue. “I came home from school one afternoon, when I still lived with Fiona. She was passed out on the couch. I saw a bottle of her pills on the coffee table, and I thought about taking them all, but then she wouldn’t have had anything to take to deal with finding me dead.” Cordelia shook her head, her straight hair framing her face. “I still don’t know why, but when I saw them, I had this horrible urge to die. All I did was inconvenience my mother. I thought maybe if I was gone, she’d be happier.”

 

The record stopped playing in the background and for once, Misty didn’t jump up to flip Stevie over. “I took a steak knife from the kitchen. I figured Fiona could do without one of those, because she sure as hell wasn’t ever cooking up a steak. I took it upstairs and into the bathroom. I got out a bottle of bleach and some old rags, so it’d be ready to clean. I took off all my clothes and laid down in the bathtub. It took me a long time to work up the nerve to do it. I decided to go for my leg, but once I made the decision to start there, I realized that maybe I didn’t have to completely die. Maybe I just needed to feel a little bit of my mother’s pain.   
  
“So I made a little cut on the inside of my left thigh. It stung like hell for a little bit and I watched the blood dribble out and down into the bathtub. It trickled down the drain, and I was mesmerized. I wanted to watch it again and again. Each time I cut, it burned and I felt my brain light up like it never had before. It was like I was finally feeling _something_ for the first time.”

 

Misty scooted closer and kissed a tear off Cordelia’s cheek, then pressed her lips to her temple, pulling the Supreme to her chest. “I stuck with my thighs over the next year. Fiona never suspected a thing. I started saving the heads off shaving razors and taking the little plastic bits off, since the knife was too big and not travel-friendly. I carried a blade with me everywhere. Sometimes I’d get so desperate to feel something at school that I’d go into the bathroom and close a stall door and do it over a toilet.

 

“Shortly before I came here I started on my arms, too. I couldn’t stop myself. I was so ashamed and numb from just existing, and feeling that little release was all I had.”

 

Misty raked her fingers over her lover’s scalp. “When I came here, I felt a little relief for the first time that didn’t involve a blade. Even though I was sad that my mother was abandoning me, I was among people like me, and Myrtle...Myrtle took me under her wing and suddenly, I felt cared for. I wanted to stop hurting myself, but...I couldn’t. It had become who I was. And I was so good at hiding it, until one day...I wasn’t. One of the older girls walked in on me in the bathtub with bloodily legs and I was so ashamed of being caught and Fiona finding out, that I cut deeper than I ever had before when she ran off to find Myrtle. I didn’t want my mother to know.”

 

Cordelia shook as she recalled the next event. “When I woke up, I was in a hospital. I could hear Fiona yelling at Myrtle on the other side of the door for bringing me in. She said secrets like mine needed to stay in the family. She tried to have me discharged, but she’d given Myrtle legal guardianship of me when she dropped me off here, so Fiona had no legal power.”

 

_Fiona stormed into her daughter’s hospital room, shaking in blind anger as she gripped Cordelia’s shoulders, shaking them and screaming, “How could you do this to me?”_

 

_Cordelia could only sob in raw embarrassment, wishing she’d cut further, deeper, and that her last attempt with a razor had been as effective as she wanted it to be_.

 

“I spent a few days in a juvenile psychiatric unit on suicide watch while Fiona fought to regain custody of me. Naturally, she won, using her powers. She got me out and brought me to a resort in Hawaii. Doctor Fiona was convinced a little sun was all I needed. We spent about ten days avoiding one another while I wore long-sleeved dresses and hid with a few books in the suite while Fiona drank at the bar.”  
  
Misty snorted at the nickname. “When did you start seeing a real doctor?”  
  
“When she let me come back here, a few months later, Myrtle quietly arranged for a psychiatrist to come in twice a week. Doctor Thredson was a little off and I really wasn’t comfortable talking to him. He told me that I had depression, which is probably true. But he also told me that Fiona had been projecting her own weaknesses onto me, and that I’d been taking her shame out on myself. I remember laughing and telling him that Fiona Goode had no weaknesses. He gave me some medication. I felt alright, for awhile, but the urges didn’t go away.  
  
“It wasn’t until Myrtle started a little construction project in the backyard that I started to actually feel good for the first time in really my entire life. She had watched me work in the study for months with my botany and potions. She thought if I had a special place to experiment that I’d have a new purpose in life.” Cordelia suddenly choked a happy sob at a memory, “All I really needed to see was Myrtle Snow wearing a pair of denim overalls and a pair of work boots to make me feel better. But, she was right. The greenhouse became my escape, and I did find peace in it. My scars started to heal. I didn’t see my mother for years after that.”

 

They were both quiet for a few minutes, Misty’s left arm draped around Cordelia as the Supreme curled into her. “Show me?”

 

Cordelia nodded hesitantly and sat straight, slowly sliding up the sleeve to her right arm, revealing a number tiny, faded scars. Misty blinked as she examined them, giving a gentle touch to the puckered skin. She felt a little guilt at not noticing them sooner; she’d made so much of their two months together about her. She’d seen the Supreme in sleeveless attire on a few occasions, but hadn’t touched to notice the pale lines of her regret. 

 

“Darlin,” Misty sighed, as she lifted the other sleeve. The cuts were higher up on the left arm, above Cordelia’s tattoo that she’d traced a few times previously. “I’m sorry no one was there for you. But I’m here now, Delia. I’m here and I ain’t going anywhere. I promise, I am here for you, always.”

 

Cordelia’s breath hitched as Misty’s lips came in contact with one particularly long scar on her left arm, just below the crease of her elbow. 

 

The younger witch pulled the comforter off, revealing Cordelia’s black sleepdress. With eyes asking permission first and having it granted with a single nod, Misty gently lifted Cordelia’s nightgown higher on her legs, sighing at the sight of a hundred tiny lines, all nearly the same color as her skin, but raised slightly. Misty ghosted her fingers over them, making Cordelia’s dam break open once more as she bent her face to kiss the scars from the past. She circled her arms around her lover’s middle, sitting up to pull the shorter witch into her lap and hold her as close as she could. Cordelia cried into her neck, muttering some incoherent phrases. Misty kept a hand over the woman’s left leg, where it was obvious which scar had nearly been Cordelia’s undoing. “I love you, Delia. And I never want you to feel like the only release you have is a razor blade, you hear me? I love you. You don’t need to hurt yourself to feel that.”   
  
Cordelia nodded and Misty pressed a long kiss to her forehead, much the way the Supreme had done for her when she’d cried over her personal hell. “We’ve got each other, and each other’s deepest secrets to keep. You still have that greenhouse outback to give you peace, but you’ve got me to give you rest now. And nothin’s ever going to take that away. I’m sorry you couldn’t feel before, but I’ve got so many feeling’s about you in my heart, that it’d be impossible for you not to feel them. You can, can’t you, Delia?”

 

The older woman lifted her head to confirm with a shaky, “Yes, Misty.” She leaned her forehead against Misty’s and hooked her hands around her neck. “Thank you for not thinking they’re stupid,” She breathed, touching one of the scars on her thighs. “Thank you for giving me something to feel.”

 

Misty had a tear of her own spill over as she cradled Cordelia’s face in her hands. “You’re my whole heart, and my whole tribe. And I promise, I’m going to kiss those old scars forever, and never give you reason to have new ones.”

 

“I love you, and that’s the most genuine feeling I’ve ever experienced.” Cordelia’s voice trembled in raw honesty as Misty gently removed her palms from the face of her love and leaned her backwards until she was laying down. Curling up next to her, Misty pulled the white blanket around them again, a hand cupping Cordelia’s hip while her mouth ghosted over the woman’s wrists and forearms before settling on her lips. 

 

 


End file.
